When Ever I Think Of Someone Collecting Shells,

a conchologist to give them their proper name,

I always think of someone collecting seashells, never land shells, until now, photograph James St. John/Flickr,

welcome to the wold of Cuban painted snails, photograph Discovery Channel Australia, out of the roughly 1,400 species of land snails that call Cuba home, the six species of the genus Polymita, fondly known as painted snails are stunningly beautiful,

because their dazzling shells are so sought after by collectors, all six species of the genus Polymita are now critically endangered, and because of many factors including collectors are now exceedingly rare, photograph Sakami Ironoya,

photograph, Bruno D'Amicis/NPL even books about them are in the hundreds pf pounds, Cuban painted snails inhabit a very thin belt of vegetation along Cuba’s eastern coastline, where they feed on lichen and moss full of minerals that give their shells that stunning look, because of their relatively small habitat, the gastropods are particularly vulnerable to land clearing by coffee growers, to predation by native and introduced predators as well as to climate change,

photograph Raff Kestarren, but perhaps the most worrying cause of Polymita snails’ “critically endangered” tag is poaching. There was once a time when locals collected painted snail shells for souvenirs without threatening the existence of the gastropods, but nowadays the global demand by collectors and merchants has become so great that it’s a real problem, collecting Cuban painted snails either for sale in Cuba or trading abroad is strictly prohibited, but while authorities have reportedly been “very effective” at preventing tourists from taking snail shells as souvenirs, their fight against organized illegal trade for the black market has been less successful, “There are indeed organized trafficking networks in Cuba,” Reynaldo Estrada, a researcher with the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Humankind and Nature, told National Geographic. “The true serious illegal trade for the black market is linked to a well-organized team of people.” I have to say I just typed in "Cuban Land Snails" and here is a company with a P.O. Box in Florida selling them and openly advertises the fact that: 

Polymitas are terrestrial mollusks that are EXCLUSIVE of the Cuban eastern province of Oriente. There is no other place in the world blessed with the beauty of these animals.

I guess that they have a special government licence from the Cuban authorities allowing them to be collected and sold on the open market.